Asparagus, White Wine and Crème Fraîche Linguini

Ingredients
2 shallots
2 garlic cloves
A glass (about 300ml) of white wine
4 heaped tablespoons of crème fraîche
Enough linguini for two people
12-16 asparagus spears (depending on thickness)
Salt
Black pepper

1. Simmer the linguini in boiling salted water
2. While the linguini is cooking finely chop the shallots and crush the garlic and fry them in a knob of butter for a few minutes
3. Add the white wine and allow to sizzle so that the alcohol burns off
4. Stir in the crème fraîche and simmer until it thickens and reduces by about half
5. Snap the woody ends off of the asparagus and slice each spear into bite sized pieces. Add the asparagus to the sauce, put on a lid and cook for just a couple of minutes until the asparagus is cooked
6. Once the linguini is cooked drain it and stir it into the sauce. Season to taste.

Serves 2

Food 2.0 Project: Nom, Nom, Nom event

Tomorrow I’ll be teaming up with Sara from The Kitchen Pantry to take part in a fun cook-off being organised by Annie Mole of Going Underground, in partnership with TrustedPlaces.com.

The event brings together food bloggers, TrustedPlaces.com members, food photographers, food journalists, food authors, everyday regular cooks, influential bloggers & senior members of leading UK based internet companies. 12 teams of 2 will be creating a 3 course meal to be judged by a panel of experts and the general public online after the event. The event will be supporting the charity Action Against Hunger. You can read all about it here.

Next week I’ll be posting a diary of the day and you’ll have the chance to judge the best on line record of the day and vote for your favourite. Watch this space!

BBC Olive Magazine: Bloggers’ Local Haunts

Recently I was interviewed by BBC Olive Magazine for a feature on food bloggers’ favourite local restaurants across the country. It’s a great article and nine other bloggers appear in it including my ‘In the Bag’ co-host, Scott from Real Epicurean. You can read it in the June edition which is out now.



While I’m here I’d like to say a very big thank you to Sylvie at ‘A Pot of Tea and a Biscuit’ for awarding my blog the 'Arte y Pico Award', how lovely! As the lucky recipient of the award I get to pass it on to 5 other bloggers. It’s always difficult to choose just a handful for these things as there are so many fantastic blogs out there. But after some thought here are the bloggers I’d like to give the award to:

A Wee Bit of Cooking
Food Stories
Frolicking Foodie
Cafe Lynnlu
The Belly Rules the Mind

The guidelines for the Arte y Pico Award are:

1. You pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

Messing about in Boats (and on bikes and in Parks)

We’ve been so fortunate with the weather here in the UK; it was gloriously hot all weekend long in Kent. We certainly made the most of it and did the typical Brit thing of dragging out the barbecue (or in our case buying a new one) as soon as the sun comes out. In fact we had a barbecue two nights in a row - well hell, it’s not often you get such great barbecue weather here in good old Blighty and even rarer to get it over an entire weekend.

Saturday was spent pottering around, doing washing, mowing the lawn and sitting out in the garden, and I planted up some herbs in pots. Let’s hope I don’t kill them like I do every other plant that has the misfortune to be owned by me. I think these herbs stand more of a chance though as I’m going to be able to get some good, and well needed, advice over on my forums. We’ve now got a forum dedicated to growing your own produce; 'The Veg Patch', which is great. Hopefully this will mean that my herbs last me throughout the summer and perhaps even beyond.









On Sunday we were invited out on a trip on my Brother and Sister-in law’s new boat. We had a lovely morning sailing in the River Medway and we got to spend time with our baby niece which was just wonderful. Next we headed back towards home to visit my cousin, his wife and their little girl, our gorgeous God Daughter. We all rode our bikes to a local park where we sat down with ice lollies and then we headed to the swing park. I’m not sure who had more fun, our God daughter or me! I went up (and down) the slide with her, bounced on the sea saw with my cousin’s wife (yes we are both over 30!) and had a go on the swings (I should add at this point that we were alone in the park so not depriving any other children or making a spectacle of ourselves in front of anybody but us!). I hadn’t done that in years and it brought me right back to my childhood. It was one of those days that make you feel warm and smiley inside. Just spending time with loved ones and enjoying the great outdoors on a beautiful day. That's what memories are made of.